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Heavenly "hard rolls"

July 13, 2011 - 10:21am

HeidiH

Heavenly "hard rolls"

Sometimes I just want to dance around singing "Heaven, I'm in heaven ..." when I make bread. Yesterday was one of those days. I finally got the "hard rolls" I've been looking for. Rolls that have a thin but hard crust and pillowy innards with just the right amount of chewiness. Makes this displaced Connecticut Yankee all happy. It's gonna be harder and harder to keep my circumference less than my height.

I think the two magic bullets were Pivetti 00 Rinzfornato flour and stretch-and-fold at 45 minute intervals. (Thank you Stan at nybakers.com for making the flour available in 5-lb bags and thank you Mike at sourdoughhome.com for the 45 minute stretch and fold videos.)

Formula for 12 kaiser-sized rolls:

700 g Pivetti 00 Rinzfornato flour

12 g salt

8 g yeast

490 g water (70%)

Procedure:

In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients. Stir in water with a spoon until a ragged mass forms and all lose flour is incorporated but don't worry too much about lumps -- similar to mixing biscuit dough. Cover and let sit for 45 minutes.

On a lightly oiled surface, do one stretch-and-fold, working in or discarding any remaining dry lumps of flour, return to bowl, cover and let sit 45 minutes.

Do a second stretch-and-fold, return to bowl, cover and let sit 45 minutes.

Do a third stretch-and-fold, oil the bowl and return the dough to it, cover and let sit 45 minutes.

Divide into 12 equal pieces. Gently shape into balls and place on parchment paper for eventual baking. Let rest another 20 minutes.

Bake for 35 minutes or until they are golden and the interior temperature is 200F.

Then try not to eat so many of them that you need a derrick to get out of your chair. We had them for broiled eggplant/red-peppers/mushrooms, fresh-mozzi and arugula sandwichs last night. I had one with butter for dessert. And breakfast. Sigh.

Am trying to find the videos on his site. Do you have a link for the stretch & fold videos? So far I haven't seen it listed. Your rolls sound great. I, also, was trying for a good har roll. NY Type, Crackly crust.

Scroll down and you'll see em on the right of the page. He really does a good job of showing the step by step for the whole thing from mixing to shaping. Peter Reinhart's stretch and fold video is good, too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1timJlCT3PM

Since hubby and I have inhaled the rolls, I'm going to make another batch and take pictures to post here. They are just too good not to.

Back when I was in grad school in Indiana, a recent arrival was squawking about her experience in a local bakery where, when she asked for hard rolls she was told, "We don't sell stale rolls."

I don't want to be redundant but since you asked I thought I would respond. As HeidiH said I also bought my Tippo 00 reinfor--on line at nybakers.com. Unfortunately, If you live in a small town your access to a variety of flours is extremely limited. Imported specialty flours are not available except through re-packagers like NY Bakers and a few others. I like to use vendors who I know price their goods at a reasonable rate. Stan has been a contributor here for a long time and we watched him stick his neck out and start NYBakers as a service for the 90% of the baking population that doesn't have a Whole Foods down the street. Even if you do have an upscale grocery near, they don't carry much of a selection compared to what Stan has on hand. Mostly I use my stand by favorite inexpensive Better For Bread from General Mills. But when I have a special project that would be better with a specialty ingredient, I'm very happy to have a source. Oh, and the flour is wonderful to work with and tastes delicious.

I get flour online from www.nybakers.com. I've been having great fun playing with the various flours Stan has.

I first learned about flour making so much difference to the taste and consistency by accident. A young friend who's in the service incorporated her pantry contents into mine when she was being deployed in the Middle East (for a third time!). Among the goodies was some Caputo 00 pizza flour. I was blown away by the difference it made in the breadstuffs I was making so I started to "read up" on flours. That's what initially led me here to Fresh Loaf and how I also found out about the flours that are only available to the trade in huge bags -- or what would be huge for this family of two!

There are quite a few places that re-bag these flours for those of use who only need a few pounds at a time -- not a 100 pound sack! -- but nybakers.com has the greatest variety. A lot of the places, e.g. Tasty Licks BBQ's store on Amazon, sells a few flours and they do have Rinzfornato. Stan, who is nybakers.com, is an active member of Fresh Loaf. He's the Stan who made comments above.

Thank you HeidiH for all of your input about flours. Ya'll remember that not everyone has access to such wonderful sources for baking. Its hard when you live in a small town. I go to Sams Club for yeast, but am dying to try new products. Doesn anyone know where you can buy cake yeast or what the equivalent is for dry grainy yeast?

Do you steam your oven? I'm going to try making these at a higher temp, steaming for 20 minutes, then uncover. Also, what about an egg white wash? Would that make the crust more crackly? Do you think these changes would be appropriate?

the whole idea behind steaming is to keep the dough moist and flexible in order to allow it to get maximum oven spring and avoid cracking. a second effect is moderate gelatinization of the starches on the outside of the dough, which contributes both to a light gloss and more important, to a thin, very crisp crust.

the general rule of baking temp is smaller/thinner/leaner = higher; bigger/thicker/enriched = lower. for example, i made kaisers last weekend, which use an enriched dough that's allowed to ferment for around 3 hours, which turns it very lean. The rolls are small (3oz/85g). I baked at 475 and steamed once before loading and again at 3 minutes and they came out beautifully -- nice open crumb, soft center, eggshell crust. when i bake sweet enriched rolls, on the other hand, like double-knots, which are egg washed as well, I use no steam and bake at 350.

different washes do different things. water will produce a dull semigloss with little browning, milk produces a bit more browning, egg white produces a browner shiny crust, and for maximum color and shine use whole egg or even egg yolk and a little water. just remember that higher temps speed up browning, so 350-375 is probably about right for milk and egg washed products.

yet! Will be getting to those this weekend. Just got the flour from your company that I ordered. Can't wait to use it. Received it yesterday. I use the Steam Bread Makers method, by injecting steam once, covering the dough, then uncovering after 20 minutes, then finish baking. So this would be too long of a time? I've been making my breads like that, but haven't done rolls. http://www.steambreadmaker.com/

In this particular case, I did not steam the oven. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Do I have much science to back up my choices? Not yet. I'm still learning. As to whites-only? Don't know. Since I don't usually have another use for the yolks, I tend to use the whole egg.

We love them! And finally, I found a roll/bread that my wife loves as well.

For over 2 years I have been baking bread, most of which I love or find better than store bought, but not so with the wife.

This roll, which reminds me of a Kaiser I used to get in upstate NY back in the 90's, makes the best sandwich ever!! Even when the meat is gone, and the last scraps of mayo covered bread remain, they just titillate the taste buds.

I followed the recipe exactly, except I used KA unbleached white flour.

I froze 15-20 so we can continue to enjoy them anytime, and they will be a staple around here.

I look forward to trying some different flours, and experimenting, but the basic recipe is perfection.

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